:. I talked to the guy at
: a local body shop, and he said he actually sprayed someone's
: homemade carbon K1. He said the finish added a lot of weight.

Ok, define "a lot."

A quart of varnish weighs about 2 pounds, figure half of that is solids, so you'll add a pound of varnish to the kayak. Roughly. I weighed the "Nereida" before and after getting sprayed: the clear coat added a grand total of 1.5 pounds to the weight of the boat (which when finished weighed around 43 pounds outfitted... It was heavy being all hardwood.). That was with four coats of clear urethane. I forget what the total dry film thickness was. For that racing K1 I would have sprayed on two light coats and called it good. The finish should have added less than a pound to the weight of the kayak.

I've personally found that bright finished boats are often marginally lighter (less than a pound) than painted boats. A painted boat requires surface priming and more fairing. The paint will show every imperfection in the surface.

I've always liked bright-finished decks on kayaks. You hardly see the hull so paint it. For the deck why hide the wood? With a modern hard urethane finish the wooden deck will look great for years to come with little to no upkeep.

If you decide to paint, consider tinting some/all of the epoxy the same color as the paint. When it gets a scratch you'll hardly notice it. I generally tint only the seal coat and the fill coats. I like to keep my laminating epoxy clear to monitor the wetout of the fabric.

=D